Games developer Valve worked with the FBI to set up a sting operation to capture a suspected hacker soon after source code for Half Life 2 leaked onto P2P networks in 2003.
The source code of the then-unreleased shoot-em-up game began circulating in September 2003. The breach that lead to the leak was traced back to an attack on …

Extradite?

Sacrificial lamb...

I always thought and still think that Valve either intentionally exposed its network, tempting someone to attack, or staged the attack themselves to get an excuse to push their Steam DRMs onto users. The guy is probably a naive scapegoat.

ago.pdf

myg0t involvement

god, myg0t are a bunch of newbies. I used to write cheats for games and was in a rival cheat clan to myg0t, they used to try and get trojans and stuff on our members machines to try and steal our code. They suceeded once and changed the name of the cheat and claimed it was theirs... If they were involved it was way over their head. but then i guess using information stolen from others for their own glory isn't something new to them.

Re: Sacrificial lamb...

In what way did it benefit Valve to have their source code leaked? I've never seen it connected to Steam. They've never said "we've got to use Steam because of the source code leak" or anything similar as far as I know. Steam existed some time before the leak.

The attack vector was a relatively obscure flaw in an old version of Outlook, as far as I remember, and the attacker had access to the network for a number of months before they were found.

I think suggesting Valve wanted to lose their code is plain stupid. Not only did it give everyone access to all their code, it made everyone aware that they'd been lying about how far along HL2 was.

@Ed

Well, I remember quite clearly that Valve said they were a) extensively rewriting the code because of the leak (an excuse for the delayed release) and b) they now had to protect their intellectual property, bla bla bla, hence the Steam.

And come to think of it - what damage did the leak of an obsolete piece of unfinished code caused to Valve? None whatsoever.

I sense another suicide on the horizon.

Thanks Vladimir Plouznikhov

The world needs loads more subjective conspiracy theories because they always turn out to be right. Otherwise we'd be labouring under the misapprehension that we just lived in a fairly random world where economies failed, governments didn't get re-elected and no one could possibly be in control.

re: Extradite??

"...so, bad luck for the US."

Umm, no. Bad luck for Valve, perhaps, if you want to view it that way. GOOD luck for US citizens (the taxpayers who have to pay to keep people in jail). Then again, we need to rethink the whole "jail" concept anyway, as it's no longer about rehabilitation.

What kind of knob

@Thomas

@RRRoamer

There might be an extradition treaty between US and Germany, but that will only cover non-citizens, for example US citizens trying to evade US courts by staying in Germany. Germany's costitution doesn't allow to extradite german citizens. A extradition treaty cannot overrule the constitution. Period.

Haxor

Dork!

This chap must be one of those really really bright crackers that brags about his efforts. Mind you, no point in cracking if you don't have any of your chums to brag too is there!

For all the encryption, proxies and what not, their one weakness still remains discoverable with social engineering. One day they might suss that and decide it's easier getting a real job where you don't have to run and hide.